Chapter II: Annie’s Story Continued

THE FEVER.

That summer our town was visited with typhoid fever in its most malignant form. Jack’s mother was among the first to take it, and in their fear of the disease her servants forsook her, and as nurses were scarce Jack was left alone with her until Fan joined him and together they cared for her until she died. A week later our father was smitten with the terrible scourge, which found him an easy prey. He had never been himself since Mrs. Hathern died, and now it seemed to me as if he gladly lay down upon the bed from which he was never to rise again.

“I am so tired,—so tired!” he said, as he folded his thin hands like a child going to sleep, and scarcely moved or spoke again until toward the last when he asked that we send for Carl. “I want to see him,” he said; “there’s something very winsome about Carl, and I must talk to him about the little boy!”

Jack, who had been with us all the time, hiding his own pain to comfort us, telegraphed to Carl’s address in Boston. It was Norah who replied, and her answer was so like her that we could not repress a smile as we read it: “He is scurripin’ around the country, the Lord only knows where, but I’ll find him,—sure.”

When we told father he said very faintly, “I shall not be here when he comes, but tell him that I have loved him like a son, and he must avoid temptation. He is easily lead. Tell him, too, about the boy.”

All the next day and the next we watched for some message from Carl, but none came. The third day, however, a telegram reached us from Norah saying, “I’ve run him down at last in Canada.” That evening there was another from Carl, saying, “Shall start to-morrow morning.”

Oh, how hard our father tried to live until Carl reached us. It was a fierce struggle between death and an indomitable will, and it was a question which would conquer. Jack kept up his courage and ours.

“If he left Boston at nine, as he probably did, he is in New York by this time,” he would say; and, later on, “He is in Washington now, and will be in Richmond to-morrow morning;” then the line of prevision was broken and we knew no more until the next day at noon, when there came a message from Richmond: “Train late. Have just arrived. Will be with you at four. Carl.”

Fan read it to our father, whose eyes shone for a moment with an eager light, while his paralyzed tongue tried to speak. But he had drifted too far away for anything to hold him longer, and when the old clock in the church tower struck one he was dead. I cannot describe our anguish as we kissed his cold, white face in the last good-bye, while his eyes, to the very last, looked so lovingly at us and his pale lips tried to whisper his farewell. Even now, after many years, my heart throbs with pain as every incident of that day comes back to me. The warm sunshine, the scent of the flowers, the song of the robin, the hum of the bees, the low murmur of voices in the room where the undertaker and his assistants were at work, Jack going in and out, occasionally consulting us but mostly doing what he thought best, and later on going with the phaeton and Black Beauty to meet Carl, while Fan and I sat on the piazza waiting for him just as we waited years before when he surprised us by coming on foot across the field and in at the rear door. Now he came more decorously, with Paul in his lap, one arm around his neck and his curly head nestling on Carl’s shoulder, while he talked continually. Paul had gone with Jack to the station, eager to meet his brother; but when a tall young man, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped upon the platform and came briskly towards him, he drew back, until Jack said, “That’s he that’s your brother; go and speak to him.”

Then he ran forward and looking shyly up at the stranger, said, “Is you my brother Carl? I’m Paul, and papa’s dead and Fan-er-Nan and Annie-mother and Katy has cried themselves sick.”

With the exception of a few presents at Christmas and an occasional mention of him in his letters Carl had never evinced any interest in Paul. But no one could withstand that upturned face and the little hands held out in welcome, and lifting the child in his arms Carl kissed him lovingly.

“Yes, I’m Carl,” he said, “and your brother, if you are really Paul; but, zounds! how you have grown. I have imagined you still a baby. What a stupid I must be.”

After that the acquaintance progressed rapidly, and the two were on the best of terms by the time the phaeton drew up to the door and Carl sprang out to meet us. The same Carl in some respects we had known as a boy, and in others so very different. Broad-shouldered, perfectly formed, six feet tall, with a heavy mustache, and an unmistakable _air distingué_, he impressed us for a moment as he had little Paul, and I felt half afraid of him. That feeling, however, vanished the moment I heard his voice, full of sympathy, as he kissed us and said, “I am sorry that I did not get here sooner. I’d give so much to see him alive once more. He was the best man I ever knew.”

I was crying and could not answer him. Just what Fan said I do not know, until I heard her exclaim, “Katy Hathern, why are you here? I told you not to get up.” Aside from the grief at the loss of our father there was a terrible fear haunting us lest Katy was coming down with the fever. For two or three days she had complained of her head, and just after father died she had been seized with a nervous chill. The doctor, whom we called at once, had ordered her to bed, and his face was very grave as he prescribed for her. She had refused to go to bed, saying she was only tired; but we persuaded her to lie down upon the couch in her room where I supposed she was until I saw her standing in the doorway, her eyes unusually bright and a deep flush upon her cheeks. She had been very small as a child, seeming younger than she really was; but within the last two or three years she had shot up rapidly, until at fifteen she was taller than either Fan or myself, with the loveliest face I have ever seen. Fan was beautiful, with a brilliant, glowing beauty like the gorgeous flowers of autumn, while Katy was fair as a lily, with a complexion like the pink-and-white shells fresh from the sea. Her eyes were large and blue as a bit of summer sky, the heavy brows and long lashes making them seem darker than they really were. Her hair, once almost yellow, was now a golden brown, with auburn tints upon it when seen in certain lights, and fell in curls upon her neck. No stranger ever looked at Katy once that did not look again, and now, as she appeared in the doorway, the purity of her complexion heightened by the black dress she wore, and her lips parted with a smile of welcome to Carl, it was not surprising that he sprang to his feet exclaiming, “Great Scott! This can’t be Katy! Why, I’ve always thought of you as a little girl in pantelets tumbling into the frog pond, and by Jove! I’ve brought you a _doll_.”

He had both her hands in his and was looking at her with eyes which seemed to take in every point of beauty and gloat over it as over some rare treasure found unexpectedly. He had kissed Fan and me, but he did not kiss Katy. Possibly she saw the glowing fire in his eyes which I saw, and did not like it, or it might have been the mention of the _doll_ which put her upon her dignity, and when he stooped as if to kiss her she drew her head back with a sideways movement natural to her when surprised or displeased. She was very gracious to him, however, and let him lead her to a seat while he sat down beside her and talked, to us, still looking at her as if he would never tire of her fair girlish beauty. Then suddenly the color left her face, her head began to droop, and finally rested on his shoulder. She had fainted from her weakness and over-exertion. It was Carl who carried her up stairs and laid her upon the bed, from which she did not rise again until the summer was on the wane and there was a foreshadowing of the September haze upon the hills and woods of Lovering.

What passed during the next few days after Katy’s faint was very vague and misty. I seemed like one in a horrible nightmare, my heart torn with anguish for the living and sorrow for the dead. The latter we buried with as little ceremony as possible. Letters of sympathy we had in abundance, but many of our friends were ill and others were too much afraid of the terrible scourge to come near us when they heard there was a fresh case in our midst. So, only the clergyman, the bearers, Jack, Paul, Fan and myself and Phyllis went across the field to the hillside where, under the pines, we buried our father beside Charlie and The Boy. Even Carl was not with us. Katy had been delirious from the first and clung to him as if he were her mother. She knew the moment he left the room and was only quiet when he sat by her, as he did almost constantly, scarcely giving himself time to eat or sleep.

“We can’t let Katy die,” he said, and everything which could be done to save the life so dear to us was done.

We had a trained nurse from Richmond and a physician who came every other day, while the doctor from Lovering came almost every hour, it seemed to me. This was Carl’s idea. He had taken the matter in charge and was spending his money like water. We had a colored woman in the kitchen to help Phyllis and he would have hired another if we had let him. Incidentally, we learned that a party of friends were waiting for him to join them in Montreal. But he telegraphed to them, “My sister is very ill and I cannot come.” He called her his sister, but his manner towards her was that of the tenderest of lovers. Many times I saw him kiss her forehead when she was more than usually restless, and once he pressed his lips to hers, from which the feverish breath came scorchingly.

“Are you not afraid?” I asked, and he answered promptly, “Afraid? No. Nothing about Katy can be infectious, and I would kiss her if I knew I should have the fever a hundred times.”

We tried in vain to keep Paul from the room. He was perfectly infatuated with Carl, who, in his absorption, paid little attention to the child. But that did not matter. Paul was not to be repressed. He would put his little hands into Carl’s and hold it fast until the young man was compelled to notice him. By some means unknown to us he had unearthed the high chair in which Katy had done penance so many times, and dragging it into the sick-room placed it where it would be most out of the way. Here he would sit in spite of us, watching Carl as he bent over the fever-stained face and restless head upon the pillow.

“Does you sink God will let Katy die?” he once asked, as the disease progressed and the hope in our hearts was nearly gone.

“No, she shall not die!” Carl answered, fiercely, and Paul continued, “I prays every night and morning that God will make her well. Does you pray, broder Carl?”

“Oh, Paul, I am too wicked to pray. God wouldn’t hear me, but he will you. Keep on, and if she lives I’ll give you a much prettier riding pony than Black Beauty ever was,” Carl said.

After that, when Paul was not in the sick-room, we found him on his knees at all hours of the day praying that Katy might live.

“And she will, you bet,” he horrified me by saying, as he came from a dark corner where he had been earning his pony.

“Oh, Paul! Where did you get that dreadful word?” I asked.

It was Fan who explained. That morning as she was entering Katy’s room, she saw Carl stoop to kiss the sick girl and heard Paul, who was as usual seated in his high chair, ask “Does you love her very much?”

“You _bet_,” was the answer inadvertently given; then, as he met Fan’s eyes full of reproach, Carl hastened to say, “I beg your pardon. You see we fellows use a lot of slang when alone, and it came from me unawares. I hope that you will excuse me, and that no harm is done.”

He was looking at Paul, who had caught the expression, as he caught everything out of the common, and who, in spite of our remonstrances, used it continually until Fan shut him up in the meal room, from which he emerged penitent and cured.

For weeks Katy hovered between life and death and went so far down the dark valley that we once thought she had left us forever. But she came back again, and after a few days it became evident that the crisis was past and she would live if her strength was sufficient for the struggle. For days she lay perfectly still with her eyes closed and her face as white as the pillow her shorn head rested upon. We had cut off her hair when her fever and delirium were at their height, for it seemed to trouble her, and she looked like a little child again, with her thin face and short curls clustering around her forehead. Suddenly one evening when we thought her sleeping, she opened her eyes and looked wonderingly at us. Then in a voice so low that we could scarcely hear her, she said, “What has happened, and why are you all in here, and why am I in bed? Am I very ill?” Then as her eyes fell upon Carl they lighted up with something of their old brilliancy, and her voice was steadier as she said, “Oh, Carl, you here? Yes, I remember now; but it seems so long ago.”

“Yes, darling, I am here,” Carl said, laying his hand on her white cheeks, which flushed quickly.

They were scarlet a moment later when Paul, who had climbed upon the bed, chimed in: “He’s been here ever so long and tissed you, oh so many times, I seen him, and once he cried when he so’t you was dead, and he’s goin’ to div me an ittle pony ’cause I prayed so much for God to make you well. I love Carl, don’t you?”

He had blurted out everything, and I glanced nervously at Carl to see how he would take it. He only laughed and said something about “Little pitchers telling all they knew,” and adding, “Why shouldn’t a fellow kiss his sister if he wants to?”

Instantly Katy’s eyes looked searchingly into his with an expression which told me that for her had commenced the old, old story, which has gone on since Adam and Eve first dwelt in Eden, and will go on as long as there is a tongue to tell it, or an ear to listen to it. But how was it with Carl, the young man of the world, with unbounded wealth at his command and his choice of any fair girl in the set to which he belonged? Did he really care for Katy, except as a brother might care for a sister as lovely as she was? and if he cared now, was he not of too fickle a nature to carry her image with him until time had developed her from a girl of fifteen into a full-grown woman?

Rumors had come to us in various ways of numerous flirtations which meant nothing to him and were dropped as soon as the first glamour was worn away and there were fresh fields to glean. From what we had seen of him we could understand how with his face and voice and manner he had only to stretch out his hand and gather almost any flower, just to inhale its sweetness for an hour and then drop it for another. Would he trifle with our Katy, or was it really only a brother’s affection he was giving to her? These questions Fan and I asked ourselves many times during the days of Katy’s convalescence, when Carl was with her so constantly, and we saw the brightness in her eyes when he came into her room, bringing fruit and flowers and books to read, but, most of all, bringing himself. There were drives in the leafy woods as she grew stronger, and walks to the cemetery on the hill side, where we often saw them sitting side by side upon the seat under the pines, his arm sometimes around her waist and her head upon his shoulder.

“Is he making love to her, and shall we let it go on? She is too young,” Fan would say, and calling Paul she would give him some flowers for the graves and tell him he might stay as long as he chose.

The chances were that Paul, who always wanted to go where Carl and Katy went, had already been there and been gotten rid of in some way, but delighted with his commission he would start across the field to execute it.

“Halloo, youngster, who told you to come here after I sent you back?” Carl said to him once, when Katy’s hand lay in his and her eyes were shining like diamonds.

“Fan-er-Nan send me,” Paul replied. “I’ve bringed flowers for papa’s grave an’ Charlie’s an’ The Boy’s, an’ my two first mammas, an’ I’m goin’ to stay.”

A few incidents like this broke up the walks to the cemetery, and, as if divining our suspicions, Carl’s manner to Katy changed a little and was more like that of a brother than of a lover. Katy was not one who carried her thoughts on her face, or talked much of her inner feelings. She was more reticent and self-contained than either Fan or myself, and if she noticed a change in Carl she gave no sign of it. But when about the middle of September he told us one morning at breakfast that he had letters from Boston requiring his immediate presence there, and that he must start the next day, her checks where the roses were beginning to bloom again became a shade paler, and there was a troubled look in her eyes whenever they rested on Carl. He seemed very cheerful and went whistling about the house as he made his preparations for his departure. He had paid every bill contracted during Katy’s illness, had bought a pretty white pony for Paul as a reward for his prayers, and done many things for our comfort.

That night,—the last he was to spend with us,—Fan found an opportunity to speak to him alone, reminding him of his mother’s dying message and what our father had said of his being easily influenced. With a laugh in which there was some bitterness, he replied, “Oh, bother, don’t you fear for me. I’m all right. Lots of us fellows have sprees but we do nothing bad. I shall sow my wild oats early and settle into a model married man. You’ll see!”

There was a thought of Katy in Fan’s mind, and she replied, “Not for years yet; and, Carl, be careful what kind of girls you consort with. Choose the purest and best. Remember that your mother said, ‘If Carl falls, it will be a woman that tempts him.’”

Then for the first time Carl showed real irritation.

“Who has been talking to you?” he said. “Has that old cat, Miss Errington, of Washington, been writing things to you? She was in Boston last winter and I met her several times. She was visiting in a house where I often called; there were three pretty girls there and once they chaffed me before her about a French grisette with whom they said I corresponded. It was just this way; you remember Julina?”

“Yes,” Fan said.

“Well,” Carl continued, “she wrote me a letter in French. She has been in Paris five years and must be perfect in the language. She was with her aunt, Madame Du Bois, who keeps a pension. She addressed me as ‘My dear Carl,’ and signed herself ‘Your devoted Julina.’ I am so poor a French scholar that I couldn’t make it all out, and got a fellow to help me, and by Jove he told of it to these girls as a joke on me, and I was hectored until I almost hated the name Julina. I didn’t answer her letter; upon my word I didn’t.”

“I know nothing about Julina and care less,” Fan replied, “but Miss Errington did write me that you were something of a flirt, and I should know that if she had not written it.”

Again Carl seemed irritated and answered warmly, “I don’t know what you mean. Can’t a fellow enjoy himself with a pretty girl who enjoys herself with him? I like them all, and the one I am with last I like the best. It is my nature. I can’t help it; but I’d burn my hands to the bone before I would wrong any girl, or knowingly deceive her. I have given no woman reason to think my attentions more than those of a friend, and if she thought so it was her own fault and because she did not understand me.”

At this moment Katy entered the room. She had heard his last words, and there was a look of surprise in her eyes for a moment; then they suddenly hardened and her manner was more like that of a Grande Duchesse than our simple-hearted Katy as she took the chair he brought her, and bending over her with his hand on her shoulder stroked her hair and said, “You look pale, are you tired?”

Leaning her head against the back of the chair Katy closed her eyes as if she were tired, but really to repress the tears which in her weak state came so easily. Months after, when Carl’s letters, at first so long and frequent, had become like angel’s visits, “short and far between,” she said to me, hesitatingly, “I thought Carl liked me just as Jack likes Fanny. He never said so, it is true, but he acted it, and I was pleased and happy. There is something about him which wins you in spite of yourself. Hypnotism, perhaps. But I am over it now. I know he does not care for me as I did for him.”

She spoke sadly, and I felt a throb of indignation against Carl, who had, unwittingly, perhaps, thrown a shadow on Katy’s life. She was young in years, but old in much which makes mature womanhood, and the attentions of a man like Carl could not fail to impress her with a deeper feeling than sisters feel for brothers. He still wrote her occasionally,—bright, chatty letters, full of protestations of affection for herself and all of us, and telling her of a life of which she knew nothing. But he didn’t come again, and he seemed at last to have passed out of our lives, into which another exciting interest had entered.